Nokia G42 5G – Review

The Nokia G42 could have been a rather uninteresting, if budget-friendly smartphone, but it has become interesting primarily due to its repair-ability. It is possible to open the phone’s case and change the battery, screen and charging tools with the parts and tools provided by iFixit. While the Nokia G22 also had the same feature, this one proves to be more interesting.

Design and build

The most prominent external feature of the Nokia G42 is the purple back, which makes it very unique. You can also get it in pink and grey, but neither delivers the same rich hue you see in the purple one. The front of the device is like every other Android phone, as there is no home button, a Gorilla Glass screen and a small camera that pierces it.

The side of the phone has a more important seam and you can use the SIM tray to open up the plastic casing with the right tools and replace some parts. The screen, charging port and battery can be switched if they stop functioning. Opening it is a bit tricky and you have to be careful when removing the battery, but once you undo the clips.

The power button of the Nokia G42 houses a fingerprint sensor and the phone weighs about 193g, which makes it a bit hefty.

Screen and speakers

As far as the size of the screen is concerned, the Nokia G42 has a 6.5-inch screen across the diagonal and comes with 720p resolution, which works for it. The maximum refresh rate is 90Hz, which keeps things smooth and while the IPS panel is nowhere close to an OLED screen, it is quite decent.

There is a single speaker at the bottom, which gives a good sound for video calls, but it is best to use headphones for listening to music or video streaming.

Specs and performance

In terms of performance, the device sits in the mid-range. The Nokia G42 has the Snapdragon 480+ chipset, which is behind that of its competitors, but it does come with a lesser price tag too. Otherwise, you will not experience a lot of problems during day-to-day use. Obviously you cannot expect it to function well when you play the latest 3D Android games, but it works for anything less intensive.

It is easy to switch between apps and most tasks can be accomplished easily. The biggest highlight is 5G support, which many phones in the budget market don’t offer. It comes with 6GB RAM and storage of 128GB that you can boost with a microSD card slot.

Cameras

The back of the phone has a 50Mp camera, a 2Mp macro lens, LED flash and a depth sensor. As long as there is enough light, the cameras are decent, but the image quality declines when it is dark. A 2x digital zoom is also available, but it does not really give good results.